October 1, 2008

pickles.

One of Andrew's co-workers told us recently that, once Bennet started teething, we should give him a pickle to chew on. He claimed that pickles would make his teeth come in if he chewed on them. I thought he was a little bit nuts. Babies eating pickles? I wasn't convinced. I was even more unconvinced that pickles would make his teeth come in. Sure, he may like them, but I wasn't buying into the medicinal qualities of the dill pickle.

Since that conversation with Andrew's co-worker, several other people had mentioned to us how much babies love to chew on pickles. No one else made the claim that pickles helped teeth come in, but everyone did agree on one thing - Babies apparently adore pickles.

We were out to dinner not too long ago, and I had a pickle on my plate that had come with my sandwich. We figured, "what the heck," and we gave it to Bennet. Did he love it? Love is an understatement. He chewed it and gummed it until it was a disgusting, hot mess. Literally. It was warm and soggy. Ew.

We didn't think too much about it after that. Bennet has been teething for about a month, but we really didn't consider the possibility that all of his pickle-gumming would make his teeth come in. About two days after we gave him the pickle at dinner, I was feeding him and noticed that he had both of his two front teeth coming through his gum! (As a side note, this was about a week ago and he is a very unpleasant baby to be around as these teeth are working their way through all the way.) My energy and time has been consumed with comforting my crying, yelling, teething baby for the past week, so I haven't had much time to think about much else.

Last night, Andrew told me that he had ran into his co-worker yesterday and told him about how much Bennet loved pickles. The co-worker asked, "Did it make his teeth come in?" Andrew realized that his teeth did, in fact, come in two days after the pickle-eating. Weird, huh?

Could Andrew's co-worker have been right? Could pickles be the answer to babies' teething woes? I'm going to try to give him another one today. Maybe pickles will make him stop being grouchy. Doubtful.

That is so funny! My grandmother said to give baby a peice of well cooked, tough, steak when teething. They will love the juice and they can't bite into it obviously. I may try it! I will probably try the pickle thing too. Weston is already teething somewhat. He's not completely into the nonstop crying portion yet but I'm sure that's to come! I hope you are feeling better.